European Parliament President Martin Schulz joined other EU leaders in urging Greeks to vote “Yes” in Sunday’s snap referendum on financial reforms, and said he was willing to make a campaign trip himself to keep the country in the euro.

Schulz said that if the Greek government didn’t “get back to Brussels” and negotiate, then he was prepared to go to Greece to reach out to Greek citizens personally.

“I will fight to convince Greek people to take that stretched hand and stay in the eurozone,” Schulz told reporters after a hastily called special meeting of the Parliament’s party group leaders and committee chairs to discuss the latest developments on Greece.

Sunday’s vote, he said, “is not only about a program, it is a fundamental vote about whether to stay in the eurozone or not.”

On Friday, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras left a two-day summit of EU leaders and later announced the surprise referendum on the reform measures being proposed by Greece’s international creditors, including the EU. On Sunday, the Greek government announced capital controls and bank closures to last through the week until the referendum.

The special meeting of Parliament’s Conference of Presidents began with an opening speech from European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, who had just come from a press conference of his own in which he accused Tsipras of “betrayal” for breaking off negotiations and calling the referendum.

Juncker told the MEPs that negotiations had been “very near to a compromise” before Tsipras’ bombshell, Schulz said.

Just as Juncker had done earlier, Schulz insisted the creditors had made real efforts to reach a compromise that had not been communicated to the Greek people. These proposals, he said, did not include increases on value-added-tax or on energy.

“There is no cut on pensions, no cut on wages,” Schulz said. “We are convinced that what was tabled by Juncker is sufficient, stable and sustainable for future cooperation in the eurozone.”

Schulz added that the creditors’ proposals would have included €30 billion “paid directly to Greece” for investment and social payments.

Several of the other Parliamentary leaders who attended the meeting also pushed for a Yes vote.

“It was a crisis meeting,” said one parliamentary source who attended. “Everybody was worried, and aware of the seriousness of the situation.”

Some of the political groups, the parliament source said, even asked for another summit to be held, while others pushed for a meeting with finance ministers.

Manfred Weber, the president of the European People’s Party, said the EU would “do whatever they can to convince the Greeks to vote yes for a fair proposal which is on the table.”

“We think it’s a balanced approach, it is a fair approach,” Weber said.

Guy Verhofstadt, the president of the centrist ALDE group said: “The Parliament is eager to do whatever it can to put all the parties back to the table of negotiations.”

Among those who strongly opposed Schulz’s plans was Marine Le Pen, who was making her first appearance at the Conference of Presidents as leader of the new far-right “Europe of Nations and Freedom” group, which was formed earlier this month.

“There is no plan B,” Le Pen said. “They don’t admit that the people will have to choose between democracy and the Troika’s totalitarianism which proposes solutions that are unfair and inefficient.”

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Julian

I do not get it, the Greek crisis started 6 years ago. In all those years there were no negotiations? And where did they lead, to greater austerity and the Greeks losing more than 25% of their income and unemployment reaching up to 40% (more than 1 million of active population) – most of them being of higher education. There are no jobs, no investments and the governments setting more and more taxes. So I wonder was it the last 5 months that Greeks left the negotiations or those kind of negotiations Europe pose do not lead somewhere?